Patent Medicines 1906 – The Birth of the Pure Food and Drug Act

Throughout the 1800s in America, "patent medicines" became a major trend. These pills and tonics had lively names, attractive packaging and secret ingredients. Some relieved pain through their high alcohol content or use of cocaine, but most were ineffective for other diseases, often doing little beyond producing a powerful placebo effect in hopeful people seeking a cure. Despite their name, these products were usually not patented, which would have required disclosing their ingredients to competitors and the public; their names, however, were often registered as trademarks. They reached the height of their popularity because doctors and genuine treatments were scarce and many people tried to treat themselves. Extraordinary advertising gimmicks included travelling medicine shows and multi-page advertisements in newspapers and almanacs for products claimed to treat diabetes, women's illnesses, baldness, asthma, kidney disease and cancer. Alleged ingredients ranged from snake oil to sulphuric acid, mercury, olive root and unspecified swamp roots.

• In late-1700s England, Ebenezer Sibly promoted a product claimed to "restore life in cases of sudden death" , his Solar Tincture.
• In 1879, the product for "female complaints" called Vegetable Compound saw sales rise when Lydia Pinkham's portrait was added to its label. Pinkham became one of the best-known women in America. 
• In 1886, Coca-Cola contained cocaine and was sold as a patent medicine to treat diseases.

Finally, in 1905, provocative American journalist Samuel H. Adams published a series of articles in Collier’s Weekly entitled "The Great American Fraud". In these articles, he criticised many remedies, including a preparation of morphine and sweetened water for calming babies, Kopp's Baby Friend, and the competing Dr Windlow's "lays them out as if dead until morning" claim for his Soothing Syrup. By exposing fraudulent claims and potential dangers associated with patent medicines, he helped lead Congress to pass the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. The law required ingredient labelling for medicines containing alcohol, cocaine, heroin, morphine and cannabis. 

Description of the article image: An advertisement for the American patent medicine Hamlin's Wizard Oil (~1890), a product claimed to help with everything from diphtheria and sore throats to cancer and diarrhoea. Ingredients included alcohol, camphor, ammonia, chloroform, sassafras, cloves and turpentine.

Historical figures mentioned in the article: Ebenezer Sibly (1751–1800), Lydia Estes Pinkham (1819–1883), Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958)

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